The Vehement Flame eBook

“Kit,” he said, “this is a ‘condition
and not a theory’; the woman was—­was
common, you know. Maurice doesn’t owe her
anything; he has paid the piper ten times over!
Any further payment, like ruining his career by ‘making
an honest woman’ of her,—­granting
an explosion and then Eleanor’s divorcing him,—­would
be not only wrong, but ridiculous; which is worse!
Maurice is an able fellow; I rather expect to see him
go in for politics one of these days. Imagine
this ‘Lily’ at the head of his table!
Or even imagine her as a fireside companion!”

“It would be terrible,” she admitted—­her
voice trembled—­“but Jacky’s
life is more important than Maurice’s dinner
table. And fireside happiness is less important
than the meeting of an obligation! Henry, Maurice
made a bad woman Jacky’s mother; he owes her
nothing. But do you mean to say that you don’t
think he owes the child a decent father?”

“My darling,” Henry Houghton said, tenderly,
“you are really a little crazy. You are
like your stars, you so ’steadfastly pursue your
shining,’ that you fail to see that, in this
dark world of men, there has to be compromise.
If this impossible situation should arise—­which
God forbid!—­if the explosion should come,
and Eleanor should leave him, of course Maurice wouldn’t
marry the woman! I should consider him a candidate
for an insane asylum if he thought of such a thing.
He would simply do what he could for the boy, and
that would be the end of it.”

“Oh,” she said, “don’t you
see? It would be the beginning of it!—­The
beginning of an evil influence in the world; a bad
little boy, growing into a bad man—­and
his own father permitting it! But,” she
ended, with a sudden uplifted look, “the ‘situation,’
as you call it, won’t arise; Eleanor will prevent
it! Eleanor will save Jacky.”

CHAPTER XXVII

Walking home that night, with Mrs. Houghton’s
“tell Eleanor” ringing in his ears, Maurice
imagined a “confession,” and he, too, used
Mr. Houghton’s words, “‘there will
be an explosion!’ But I’ll gamble on it;
I’ll tell her. I promised Mrs. Houghton
I would,” Then, very anxiously, he tried to
decide how he should do it; “I must choose just
the right moment,” he thought.

When, three months later, the moment came, he hardly
recognized it. He had been playing squash and
had given his knee a nasty wrench; the ensuing synovitis
meant an irritable fortnight of sitting at home near
the telephone, with his leg up, fussing about office
work. And when he was not fussing he would look
at Eleanor and say to himself, “How can I tell
her?” Then he would think of his boy developing
into a little joyous liar—­and thief!
The five cents that purchased the jew’s-harp,
instead of going into the missionary box, was intensely
annoying to him. “But the lying is the
worst. I can stand anything but lying!”
the poor lying father thought. It was then that
Eleanor caught his eye, a half-scared, appraising,
entreating eye—­and stood still, looking
down at him.